Towards an evidence-based understanding of emergence of architecture through continuous refactoring in agile software development

Abstract

The proponents of Agile software development approaches claim that software architecture emerges from continuous small refactoring, hence, there is not much value in spending upfront effort on architecture related issues. Based on a large-scale empirical study involving 102 practitioners who had worked with agile and architecture approaches, we have found that whether or not architecture emerges through continuous refactoring depends upon several contextual factors. Our study has identified 20 factors that have been categorized into four elements: project, team, practices, and organization. These empirically identified contextual factors are expected to help practitioners to make informed decisions about their architecture practices in agile software development.